Internet creates beauty out of chaos says cyber-utopian

Internet creates beauty out of chaos says cyber-utopian

Category

Internet Marketing

Several books in recent years have warned that we were going to drown in a sea of information.

But “We’ve gotten along pretty well,” David Weinberger, a marketing consultant and author of the new book, “Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder,” said today.

Speaking to an audience of about 100 at the BIGfrontier/Mobium Creative Group business education presentation at the Merchandise Mart, he said our salvation has been the abundance of even more information.

He said the chaos of information overload has been tamed online with “information about information,” labels and tags created as people collect bookmarks and links online.

Weinberger, a fellow at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for the Internet & Society and co-author of the hit Internet marketing primer, “The Cluetrain Manifesto,” said the traditional systems used to classify things, such as books, household utensils, animals and plants, always reflect the limited worldview of the organizer.

Typically, there is a “miscellaneous” drawer for whatever doesn’t fit. Miscellany had been considered a failure.

“The Web is a huge ‘miscellaneous drawer,’ ” Weinberger said.

The miscellany in the digital world is a good thing, he contended: It has a power of its own, enabling Internet users to classify and find things themselves according to their own needs of the moment.

He contrasted this approach to that taken by store owners who put the popular merchandise in the back of the store so customers are exposed to other products on their way to finding what they want. He said that wouldn’t be acceptable online.

The Internet is facing changes in the years ahead with a cultural clash over whether “we keep it ours,” as an open free-for-all, “vs. (whether it becomes) cable TV,” he said.

“It’s still ours,” the self-described “cyber-utopian” said. “We’re choosing sides. That’s what this era is about.”

Steve Lundin, chief hunter and gatherer, BIGfrontier Communications Group, co-sponsor of the event, said, “Weinberger is pulling a sharp focus on the discrete and confusing jumble of elements that make up the Internet experience for everyone from students to marketers to librarians. He presented our audience with a ‘man behind the curtain’ peek at why and how our communication and data access processes are changing, whether we like it or not, and mainly for the better.”

http://www.suntimes.com/technology/678832,misc120307.article